How often do you reload a save?

[Seven05]

I load a saved game about once a day and then only because I can't play it though in a single sitting. I'm a glutton for punishment so if I screw up I enjoy the challenge of setting things right again.

As for whether or not it's cheating, who cares? Really, if you do that in a single player game because it's fun for you, knock yourself out. I prefer to live with my mistakes because that's what makes the game fun for me. It's a single player game (otherwise you wouldn't be re-loading in the first place) so you can't cheat, well you can cheat yourself out of the gratification you get when you overcome your mistakes or impossible odds but what one person defines as gratification is another person's frustration.

So go forth and enjoy the game, re-load a save if you want to and don't if it bothers you. Ignore all the other people that are trying to tell you how you should or shouldn't enjoy your game. As long as you're having fun nothing else matters.

 

[LeoV]

There are 3 legitimate (not cheating) reasons to reload. They can be summarized as "the game interface screwed you over". This is why I save on every turn.

1) Crash/windowkick/freeze at the most historically significant moment.

2) The darned game interface did something I never told it to do!!! The UI has a nasty habit of stealing input focus away from a unit you WANT to move, and giving it to a warrior sitting next to a barbarian city, causing it to happily suicide. At one point, war was accidentally declared because Alt key was misinterpreted as being pressed.

3) You are deceived by the game interface. You mistake a stack of 9 enemies to be a single archer (it looks similar enough to really confuse me sometimes).

In these 3 situations, I believe it's not cheating to reload, provided you repeat all of your previous INTENTIONAL actions exactly the same way you did before.

 

[Equisilus]

One thing I didn't state when I answered this earlier was that I, as with others like Seven05 above, fully believe that everyone should play a single player game in the manner they want, and in any way that gives them the most enjoyment. I seriously do not care one bit if someone sits there all night reloading repeatedly to get the best outcome out of a battle or whatnot. It has no bearing on my enjoyment of the game. Have at it.

Just don't read strategy forums. I consider gaining all that extra useful information cheating.

 

[Tauro]

I lame reloaded in my my past life

I finally feel better with no reloading thanks to GOTM; another way to play, more realistic, you start to learn to decide when you have to decide , not the turn after you are defeated for an "unlucky" attack or defense

I don't reload even if a stupid worked had an automated path so he falls in the enemy arms.
I'll learn to give him a "manual" step by step path

Maybe is the tedious part of this game, but after all is always the same game.

 

[CarvaJP]

Having just completed my first game against the computer, I must say I've saved a few times to experiment game variations.

It was a rewarding experience, because I won from 4000BC to 2050AD, but I've got a lot of questions in between. I understand that probably many of these, to be answered, require a re-read of the manual, docs, posted materials, etc.

From a philosophical point of view, I generally save whenever I get that possibility, before making what I believe a turning game point, or when I have to stop playing for some reason.

My first save was also felt like a cheat, because when you resign the game, you get a lot of info on what you're up against.

This is only on single player, obviously. I wouldn't dare go to multiplayer before minimum grasping the game!

From previous experiences with many different games, I would say that you should save whenever you feel you've come to a decision point. This relates to single playing. I have a lot of experimenting to do before tackling multiplayer

 

[Spearthrower]

My first save was also felt like a cheat, because when you resign the game, you get a lot of info on what you're up against.

Just so you know, you don't have to resign to leave a game, you can just Exit it in the same menu and not get the info screen!

 

[Adamb0mb]

I reload much less these days. During the first civ I would reload constantly.

 

[genjiboy]

If reloading a computer game after screwing up or dying is cheating, well... there's a whole lot of cheating going on, and not just in strategy games.

Before a pivotal decision, I save the game. Then I play another 50 turns or so, and evaluate my position. If I do not like that position, or feel that I could've done better, I reload the save and try something different. I feel like I'm learning something this way, even if I'm not playing each game to its conclusion.

Is it cheating? No idea, but I have no qualms about doing it if it doesn't affect other players. So please, people, get off your high horses, and stop judging my - and other peoples' - single player games. There are far more important things to worry about.

 

[Exel]

I don't usually reload if I'm doing badly in war, unless I'm about to be completely annihilated. I do, however, quite often reload if something catastrophic happens in the early game - I see it as a milder alternative of quitting and starting a whole new game. Then again, I may sometimes feel masochistic and enjoy the game from a handicapped start.

 

[goraemon]

Forget the "cheating or not" debate. It isn't relevant.

I don't think any of us judge how you play in your private games. Heck, play around with worldbuilder and give yourself all the advantages in a deity game and roll over the AI with a couple tanks at 2000BC if you want. Reload once or a million times whenever something goes wrong - a wrong keystroke, a 95% battle lost, accidentally declared war, wrong unit moved, whatever. Use the game like a sandbox and play around with it. If it helps you learn, great. If you somehow enjoy the game more this way, so be it.

There is nothing wrong with any of it.

Just don't pretend that any of your wins achieved this way are legitimate or on the same level as wins achieved by the rest of us who like to play the game straight through, without compromises.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The AI is cheating against you to make up for your superior skills -- not to make up for your superior cheating ability.

What noone realizes is that when you lose a game, the reason is that you actually were going to win, but the AI cheated and reloaded a saved Universe after it realized it was playing the wrong strategy.

 

[Astat]

well i couldn't feel good for playing games on prince if i resorted to stupid load-whenever-you-dont-like-something methods. (i know many guys play games on emperor, so dont laugh at my prince.. it's my second civ4 round)

the AI cant load when i score a lucky hit, why should i?


however: i load whenever i make a _mistake_
missing a wonder by one turn is not a mistake if the enemy was just plain faster. but it is a mistake if i accidentially set my city population to wheat fields instead of mines, which i actually intended.
and i also didnt load when i missed philosophy for one turn, even though it was my primary goal since i saw that i was on an isolated island..

my last 2 loads were:
- a fleet with a great artist had a preset movement path. scouting frigates suddenly discovered an enemy task force in the area, and i wanted to divert my endangered transport fleet, but something went wrong (misclicking)and the fleet moved right next to the enemy frigates. load.
- i get "enemy has been sighted near city XX" all the time since hundreds of enemy frigates keep roaming my coasts. suddenly, i realize that he has been landing next to one of my cities when he kills the single warrior in it, then razes the city. load, and the moment i see the enemy transport ships on the map, i start defending the city.

oh and one more thing: if people play on monarch or above and load whenever they dislike the outcome of a wonder race or something, i don't regard them as better players than me.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

oh and one more thing: if people play on monarch or above and load whenever they dislike the outcome of a wonder race or something, i don't regard them as better players than me.

It's also worth bearing in mind that reloading doesn't always work for the better. A few times I've been experimenting and reloaded to try something different after my original plans went wrong. Only to discover that thanks to the vagueries of (I assume) some random number generator my original plans gave me some hidden lucky break that the new timeline didn't. Eg. Unrelated to what I was doing, some other civ declares war on me after the reload - they didn't on the original game.

On one occasion I missed the pyramids by one turn. Since I viewed that game as a serious game I accepted the loss and kept on. Turned out the 400+ gold I got in lieu of the pyramids kept my science up at 100% for ages, allowed me to expand much faster than I would've done at the crucial land-grabbing stage of the game, and arguably helped me far more than the pyramids would ever have done.

FWIW like many people I reload if something went wrong in the UI, or I simply forgot to do something I was intending to do, or if I'm playing in order to experiment, but I never reload if I want to play a 'real' game and I simply miscalculated something or got bad luck in a battle. Would spoil the fun for me

 

[DarkSchneider]

Well I'm interested in the outcome of this discussion, I'm glad to see that people have had so much to say about it. Right now I'm wrapping up an Immortal level game that I've reloaded many, many times. I do know for certain I would not be winning unless I did reload, since I learned some new strategy this time around, and a couple of the reloads allowed me to aquire wonders and keep cities I would not have otherwise.

So I've decided to go back to Monarch level and see if I can win without reloading entirely. I already know that Emporer would be too tough, but Monarch feels doable. Have to see what comes of it anyway. I feel as though I was much better at Civ 2 than any of the other ones, but most of that came from a number of exploits that they've fixed in Civ 3 and 4...

 

[goraemon]

however: i load whenever i make a _mistake_
missing a wonder by one turn is not a mistake if the enemy was just plain faster. but it is a mistake if i accidentially set my city population to wheat fields instead of mines, which i actually intended.
and i also didnt load when i missed philosophy for one turn, even though it was my primary goal since i saw that i was on an isolated island..

I'll admit I fall on the more unforgiving side of this spectrum, because I never reload even if I misclick or whatever. I'd either stick it out and play through my mistakes or admit defeat and start a new game. My rationale is that I can make unintended mistakes in RL too but I don't get to go back in time. Again though, this is a game and as I said before there's nothing inherently wrong with however you decide to play it.

 

[STDIO]

I wonder how many of the never-loaders use Load when playing FPS games.
I mean, if you died fighting the end-game boss, why shouldn't you start back again from the begining?

 

[TLHeart]

Reload, never.....

I try and recover my mistake, and continue on with the game, until time runs out, or I am eliminated. I have learned even more about the game doing this than I could have ever learned reloading and trying to prevent my mistake.

Those who reload are not only cheating at the game, but cheating them selves on the learning experience of catching up after a mistake.

 

[Acceptable_Loss]

Never, Never Never.... If I make a mistake and it could cost me the game oh well...
For me it's not about winning everytime I play... It's about the experience...
Hey if you never have to deal with adversity you never have the satisfaction of overcoming it...

As you might except I'm also one of those players that plays a game regardless of the starting location...

I wonder how many of the never-loaders use Load when playing FPS games.
I mean, if you died fighting the end-game boss, why shouldn't you start back again from the begining?

I play a lot of FPS's and I cosider saving and loading to be completely different in those games...

There is one type of quick saving in FPS's that is a similar exploit to cIV loading: That is quick saving after EVERY fire fight, after EVERY hallway... after EVERY corner...
Some do that... for me I usually just use the built in auto saves or maybe make a save at a very challenging part...

 

[goraemon]

I wonder how many of the never-loaders use Load when playing FPS games.
I mean, if you died fighting the end-game boss, why shouldn't you start back again from the begining?

I *KNEW* someone would come up with this argument. Here's my reply.

I don't play FPS often, but I reload all the time when I do. As far as I'm concerned it's no different. I'm not exactly proud of it, but I do it anyway because I want to get through the game and, frankly, the game often doesn't have much replay value.

Still, if there are people who can complete a given FPS game without reloading once, well bless his soul because he's got my respect. And I certainly believe that his win is much more legitimate and well-deserved than my reload-infested win.

That's all I was saying about cIV. If I can win a standard emperor game at cIV without reloading, I believe that's well-deserved and legitimate. If someone wins at deity through a million reloads, it's cheap and tainted imo.

Of course, as I've said more than once before, there is nothing wrong with reloading, using worldbuilder, cheating etc., because there is nothing wrong with playing the game how you want.

Basically, never-reloading is a standard I set for myself at cIV. I don't bother setting these standards at FPS because I'm not that good at it and I'll never play it much. Again, nothing wrong with either approach.

 

[Rayjr]

In civ 3 I was a reload master. I would do it with that first hut till I got that second settler unit.... I never thought of it as cheating although reading these threads it sure seems to be frowned upon. but civ 4 I don't do it anymore for a couple reasons... 1 is what the hell I lose I lose and 2 it just takes too damn long and my computer really doesn't like it when I reload. my graphics card really can't handle that. 3 considering I would like to do some more on line play with other people I think its better I just break that habit all together.